New, three-shot story which I'll be updating in my spare time. This story may go to M, not from any adult scenes, just because of dark stuff and violence. So if that's not your thing, then I'd suggest clicking that back button and go find something more to your taste. It'll stay at T for now. Anyways, enjoy the story and leave some feedback on if you liked it, you didn't or it made no sense at all.
Perhaps it's the locket she swings in her hand, the mark of former affection. Perhaps it's the blood that stains her white sleeves or the blank gaze of an auburn-haired girl. Perhaps it's her own bitterness stinging in her heart, or the reminder of what could have been.
Is it the stares when she enjoys the beatings, where she'll take the punch and grin, waiting to be hit again. With what everyone claims is a great life, she's come to love blood and pain, starvation and cold. It's soothing, and it's hilarious. The slow cut of a knife, the harsh yank of her hair or the brutal twist of her arm. It's all so damn hilarious. And she'll emerge strong every time, with a broken nose and the other person's red-stained corpse at her feet. Dark red blood pooling around her leather boots and skin torn as she steps over yet another body.
She's not got the time for the sanguine tidbits of Auradon life, preferring the dirt and slums so long as no young urchin scuffs up her boots. Fine leather costs money, and there's a lack for that essence of modern life around these grimy streets, where children wail in hunger and want and many whisper of revenge soon to come.
But their words are mere fantasy, and as long as they are enclosed within this hellhole unfit for the worst of villains herself, Maleficent ; it is best that they rule while they can and build from there. They are children of villains, are they not? By all means, they should live up to their mothers and fathers, if not surpass them. And so she carves her own name, independent from the family that makes her mocked so. She carves it out through the swing of a sword, through the twirl of a flintlock and the bang of a bullet lodging in someone's skull. A new name, independent from her royal heritage and her crazy Auradon bastard of a father.
She is Jamie Sparrow, and she will outlive the pathetic wimps who sucker up to the thought of retribution. She will live on in crimson violence, in fear and in power. She will never live among prissy princesses and dashing princes. She will stand knee-deep in the grime and grunge and force her way through it until she has risen to the top of the food chain.
A rose wilts in her window, her heart and goodness vanishing with the ruddy red of the half-dead flower that had been an engagement gift from one Bethany Blackbeard. It would have been a harmonious relationship had it not been for the fact that Jamie's self-forged golden sword had stuck her right through the chest.
Of course, it was all a game in her world. Death, love, torture, heartbreak, pain ; it was all part of the fun! Just avoid others, show no emotion and spring on them. Tricks and fights were the only ways to manage something on the Isle, no emotion, that's the way business ran.
There were some who were weak on the Isle, but then there were the ones like her. The ones who were insane, like Ace with his clothes as red as meekly spilled blood, blood from a simple cut. Not the burgundy red fountain that sprayed forth when your enemy or perhaps your former friend took their last breath. But the meek shades of that color unlike the velvety crimson that cloaked her chest were nothing to represent the insane boy's personality. Or should she say, personalities.
For being ordinary was… non-existent among the members of Uma's crew or among the trials trio and all who associated with them. In the faraway forest where the most nightmarish of bloodthirsty mutts and monsters dwelled, lay many tormented by their own minds. Hybrids lost control, sanity snapped like a rope on a ship that pulled out towards the ocean that meant freedom. Freedom, ignorance and pure, bloody, bliss. They were so broken, they'd lean into the hand that fed them or the hand that harmed them. There was no difference, too numb to feel. Too numb to eat, sleep was a distant thing for fear of the nightmares. For fear of the dead, ghostly white faces that would come back to haunt you. Wanting you to free them, to join them, to leave behind this rotted hell you were confined to. To collapse, alone and unloved with a rope around your neck or a gun beside you, or the knife lying beside a slitted wrist. Your mother or father to burst in, to see your limp form drained of all spirit and hope that kept you alive, for them to regret their actions.
Join us.
Worthless, it's not like anyone ever cared, they've got no use for you.
Puppet.
Die. Watch them fall, watch them give up because you're gone and they're ALONE, hate yourself because you're NOTHING.
But she lives, she lives for two others and for the dream of ruling and power. The Auradonian fools didn't see what went down in these shadowed alleyways. They saw their own perfect world, with their sugar and tea and fancy marriages, their wealth and splendor with no thought of those on the isle and the children corrupted from such a young age.
God Help The Outcasts.
They don't see the whips and beatings Morgan receives, they don't see the way he recoils at the mention of a fight. They don't see how parents treat their children. All they know is a blissful world, but one day their little perfect bubbles of safety will crack and they'll see everything, feel every damn thing that children oh-so-young have to endure.
And so she cuts. It's no distraction, or folly. It's not to hide the internal pain or provide relief. It's just simple, only one reason….
It's fun.
The torment makes her laugh until tears stream from her eyes, the sharp spikes and constant bandages, the silvery blades cutting all across her arms are hysterical. She licks up her own blood, relishing in the tangy, copper taste and the fire that burns through those simple strokes. She traces her hands over healing scars, craving the sweet, sweet pain she loves so much. But never enough pain to kill herself, because she wants to keep living, but she wants the amusement and the burning ache that turns to ice and it's all so confusing.
It's wave after wave of dim, dusky alleyways and hostile glares, an occasional hand reaching for her golden jewelry. She swats the hands away, turns away from the glares. Steps on those passed out in the streets.
There's a sort of… partnership between her and the sea witch brat. How a useless child of Ursula ever thought she could be a queen or a even pirate was beyond her comprehension. But it's necessary, and that was what kept her from slitting the whiny girl's throat. All of how 'she had been treated as worthless' and the same old 'revenge' that every worthless VK in this muck heap bitched about. It took a tolerance for pain… no. A love for pain.
She'd rise above.
She learned to sail a ship, when to release the sails and how to brave the worst of sea-storms. How to fight with some code of honor that she ditched within a week, finding it too restricting.
The only honor she had was a fierce loyalty to her two partners. Although she found herself often shunning Morgan's weaker demeanor in favor of Ace's fiery and insane personality. Moving on to where the red-haired boy consumed every free moment she had. Breaking her bonds with others, devoting her life to the one she decided was her life-long partner. Life-long, until death and even beyond then, the two fit together like broken glass forming into something whole… yet was still fractured and would never be the same.
Nothing was healthy about their relationship, laughing together at murder and pain and suicide, howling with laughter when they found out about the death of Morgan. It was if they were the Gleefuls, and he was Will. Too weak, like a servant until they left him behind for how useless he was. Couldn't survive on his own.
It would never be said or hinted at, but deep inside their blackened hearts and torn souls, regret bubbled up within them, slowly eating more and more at the fragile strands of sanity they still had left. Ripping them apart until they found themselves drinking to forget, and convinced that the only way out was death.
Seeing the clear paths ahead of them, knowing their souls were damned. From being beaten to being the beaters, and when their spirits were all that remained of them, hell was the only way out of a life that felt like hell the way it already was.
So when she watched herself bleed out, watched the world go black as there were shouts. A bloody smile perched on her lips, her hand falling on the ground and eyes closed as she welcomed the sweet pain that meant the end of it all. The sky above her lifeless body turning to a dirt one, a chiseled gravestone near the top of her head. Body buried by Morgan's. How ironic, how even when they were gone, they were still stuck together.
This was what it felt like to die. It was soothing, comforting and everything she had ever wanted. Just as tempting as it had been from the beginning, and just as good as she had thought.
For emotions, bonds and power was nothing compared the silent bliss of the dark void. Nothing to be afraid of.
To die would be an awfully great adventure.
There are two more parts to this, one from Ace's POV and one from Morgan's POV. They'll be 1,500+ words for each chapter, so... yep. This is chock-full of references, and if you can recognize any of them, I love you forever.
-Val